Hi Kids

Well this week was pretty cool, i guess. We did a ton of service, like pretty much all day everyday, every night i was just exhausted. You would all laugh to see me actually working lol. I think i'll start a landscaping or window cleaning business when i get home . . . NOT! I can't believe storm windows even exist, i'm very glad to have double paned windows in the 20th and 21st centuries. So probably my favorite thing that happened to me is we were riding our bikes like way far out in the middle of no where trying to find a headquarter referall and this car slowly rides alongside me and this guy hands me this anti-mormon pamphlet out of the window lol. It's a short comic entitle "The Visitors" lol it makes fun of the elders, it's really funny. Anti is effective because it's almost all true, but it's usually just taken out of context and people aren't ready for that kind of deep doctrine. Some of it isn't really accurate though, but it was really funny :D We also got to go to 2 fiestas. Hector's granddaughter's party was crazy she was only turning 1 ha ha. They had his pony there, which i rode btw before ;), and this big blow up jump around kinda thingy, and this huge horse pinata. It was really fun there were tons of kids there. A lot of our service was for Hector, mowing his lawn and taking care of his horses, well what we can do lol, and building a fence for him out at his property just outside town. Anyways pretty fun week but we didn't reach our mission standards for new investigators, we only got 1, so we have to count all of our finding this week and our goal is 70 potentials, so we'll see how that goes ha ha.

Blake in a class in the MTC

Hey Noobs, (the "R" Prayer)

One question, can you watch the movies that were on my videocard? not everything was a picture ya know so make sure the movies on itwork and that you can see them, a couple are super cool and i want so let meknow to make sure i can delete them when you send the card back :D Hmmm no the President hasn't come out with an exercise regiment but i wishhe would cause i don't know what i'm doing in the mornings lol. Hector andhis family missed church yesterday but he said he might so it's ok, he workslike over 2 hours away and way early in the morning and doesn't get to sleepcause he's always working at home or with his horse. He slept till noon ithink on sunday then went to get ready to race his horse. They are anawesome family tho i love them a lot i really hope they'll keep reading itmakes me way happy when they read like one chapter lol. So some jehovah'switnesses let us in their house the other day, which is surprising cause idon't think they are supposed to let mormons in. And they tried to likeconvert us basically lol Their church isn't even a church it's like anorganized bible study. I do like how they actually read the bible thothat's refreshing in this area. Ya they just tried so hard to prove thatJehovah is not jesus and we would show in their own bible how they refer toone another, like we were way calm we wanted to "throw down" but didn'tcause bible bashing is so pointless, any religion can prove themselves withthe bible so it's pointless. They gave us stuff to read and i was like "Soyou go out and do missionary work right? and give people this stuff to readright? so why does your church forbid you to read other people's stuff?kinda ironic huh" lol i said that really nicely tho but it's such hypocrisyin my opinion. Lol this book is entitled "What the Bible really teaches"and it's just so wrong it makes Elder Tripp really mad so i told him hecan't read it anymore ha ha they just try to be so hard core to the hebrewtranslation and i dunno they are just modern day pharisees to me. They knowthe bible better than anyone but reject christ, or his servants. Other thanthat i can't really think of anything else that went on. O ya this guyoliver we started teaching is really promising he's had a stroke and a heartattack so his health is bad... I'm glad you started an exercise program i'mproud of you both :D... and anyways he was saying the closing prayer and wasall "Lord i'm so f*cking tired" and i started laughing and then elder trippdid but we did it as quietly as we could. People just don't know what'sright and wrong after a whole life of doing wrong. Anyways love you guysthanks for the garments again and stuff. love elder blake theo porter

On My Way

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Life in the MTC

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My Favorite and Latest Letter

Hi

 Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2008  (this was an email I got from Blake, it's fun to get these little notes from him, it shounds like he is happy and doing well. )

i couldn't see any of the pictures you sent me :( my internet and email service is retarded it won't even let me like save them to the computer or anything i don't know why it's so stupid maybe it'll work some other time.  that's intense that you got stung by a jelly fish lol serves you right being in hawaii, sounds like you still had fun tho :D basically i just do underground horse racing in texas all day so it's cool lol i got your post card tho that was so nice of you ;) i miss your kids a lot, sounds like mom and dad had their hands full lol they are such good cute kids tho. man there's teenagers i talk to here that have like half the common sense and education as michael and savannah it's ridiculous i had no idea how well off we were in utah, everywhere else sucks so bad, at least here lol
 
ya have mom send you and like ryan and melinda the email i sent them i just have no time to email everyone it's ridic, i even went to the baptists again and to no avail. I need like 3 hours i swear. well love ya sharon tell mark and everyone hi for me i want a yard like yours when i "grow up" :D
 

love elder blake theo porter

FW: hello

Monday, July 07, 2008 9:44 AM

 Ya it's a credit card not my debit one that will be coming so i'll still have my debit card for quite a while. Ya they actually give us debit cards they get money on them once a month, like 125, for laundry, food, everything we can buy. I'm small on waist and tops for my garments. The new mission president is really cool we had interviews with him just this last wednesday. The first thing he asked everyone was if they were working out in the mornings lol. But ya they both liked me i guess bro. bender told Pres. and Sis. Robison a lot about me, tell him thanks lol i dunno know why he had to lie to tho :D
 
So yesterday was a way fun sunday, we had hector's family come to church which was awesome so we had 4 investigators attend church this week. hector is awesome i don't think i told you much about him cause i was on exchanges when they taught him the first 2 times, but he has a baptism date. He races horses and it sounds like he makes a lot of money betting on them. Lol we went out to this horse race track like right next to a bunch of corn and we watched him race this other guy for practice, he won which is cool we found out the next day he won $1000 from it lol. His only real problem is he drinks sometimes, but his family is awesome and way nice, it's so random cause his daughter monica is another one of our investigators she's living with ruben just up the street. We found them both the same day but had no idea till like 2 weeks ago that they were related.
 But ya at church we were help giving a baby blessing but the kid was like 2 already cause they just moved here and the dad isn't active. And so anyways one of the members was blessing him and he just like screamed bloody murder and hit our hands away, lol he just kept trying to give him a blessing through it all and the kid just kept screaming. Our investigators probably thought we were up there bleeding him or something lol he was going nuts. O ya and then this guy was bearing his testimony and was like "ya i've seen an angel, and i shook its hand like joseph smith taught, and i found that it was a good angel" and we were like... o my gosh... our investigators are gonna freak... but then he's like "and then i married that angel" and we  were like thank goodness he's talking about his wife lol cause if he was  serious we were gonna freak out. Anyways sounds like sharon's trip in hawaii was good and painful, that's what she gets going to some nice tropical island when i'm in west texas ;). I'm running out of email time ugh i must be a slow reader or something cause i suck at this.
 

Monday June 30, 2008

Hi Family,
Oh for the ties they look good :D i don't need any ramen or like mac n cheese tho cause like that's all i can afford when i go shopping, lol so send me expensive food :D just kidding, sorta lol So what to tell you all... I gave another blessing, this time to a guy who just found out he has leukemia (sp?) and it's sad he's kinda older like 60's and he's really giving up i think. He was lying there and elder tripp volunteered us to give a blessing and told them i'd give it, it's just kinda intimidating when his wife is there praying at his bedside and i'm supposed to help somehow, but the spirit is really strong in those cases and it was good. They aren't members, they are investigators tho but i dunno he seems to be giving up hopefully he can try to find some more strength in the gospel. So i talked to this cop killer a couple of days ago lol don't worry mom he was nice to us anyways. He was heavy into this bike gang and like told us some crazy stories, the craziest of which is when he killed a cop and his gang member buddy took the fall for him, he still did 8 years in prison as an accomplice to murder. All sounds really crazy i couldn't even imagine i am so grateful for you guys for how you raised us. This biker's kids don't even have a chance dude one of his sons like had a can of tabacco and like was all "look i'm like my daddy" and stuffs it in his pants and walks around, like i dunno he will be like his dad i'm sure. On a brighter note we have 3 investigators with baptismal dates. gotta go, love ya

Monday June 23, 2008

Yes i got the pictures lol i got them just today. I dunno what to do withthem so i dunno if i want anymore, thanks tho i am mailing a couple to ali.Yes i also have my bike helment and lock thanks, the box was really beat upand my helmet has a little dent in it and some black marks but it's not badat all, i also do not need any lights lol my trainer doesn't even havereflectors. So something really lame happened this week my friend Guillermo left town.Him and his girlfriend Juanita who we've been trying to teach have been in alot of arguments cause Guillermo wouldn't get a job. He's smart and has adegree, but he's illegal, so anyways we found him jobs roofing and workingin fields and stuff but he wasn't willing to do them. It's sad to seeJuanita he didn't really tell her he was leaving or anything so she's reallyheart broken about it. Like the night before he left we went over and had agood lesson and taught her for our first time, and gave them scriptures toread and pray about, and they did it. So jaunita thought he'd cooled down abit but ya the next day he was just gone without saying anything she justame home from work, she works like 12 hours doing nursing home stuff allnight, only $6/hour, and ya his clothes and stuff were gone. It's justmessed up he lived with her for a year and a half and never helped pay thebills and now he's gone. She was a little behind this month so Elder Trippand I went today to the city and paid her electricity and water cause theywere gonna shut them off cause she was behind. Lol i have no money reallybut i felt bad for her. It's kinda nice tho cause she is letting us talk toher a lot now, i think because of their arguments and his insisting he wasgetting in the way of her progress. It's hard Guillermo was and is a reallynice guy I understand that little plainview didn't have any thing for him,but it's just weird he didn't tell us or Juanita about leaving it's lame hewas a good guy. We also did service at her house like all afternoon theother day, the day after he left, and mowed her "lawn" (the lawns are grosshere no one waters really) and picked up this giant pile of garbage and woodin her yard. We didn't have gloves or anything lol so i was grabbing allthe garbage and i cut my finger on a broken bottle, pretty lame actually iprobably have tetanus. There was tornado warnings just north of us the other day i really hope iget to see one before i leave texas the lightning storms tho are awesomeit's the highlight. Another couple we're teaching is Inez and Manuella theyare kinda older like 60ish but they have already been taught everything bythe other missionaries they really just need to get baptized. The problemis Inez speaks no English at all and Manuella only a little so Bro. Calderongoes with us. He's the Elder's Quorum President and he's like amazing, hisEnglish is pretty good but i love hearing him talk ha ha. He's like 50 butlooks like he's 30 and definitely a good missionary he takes us all over theplace which is good cause we have no miles left really except to go down toLubbock for District Meeting. Anyways basically he talks to them for anhour and we just sit there lol and occasionally hold pictures or findscriptures i feel like a little kid when we're there cause i can't reallytalk to them. P-days are cool i just wish there was something to do or seePlainview has 24,000 people but it feels like it's only 240. Well i'm glad dad is ok does he get a new suv now? :D Not very many peopled email me this time so i don't have much to read which is good i think just an hour of email time today will be sufficient although going to the Baptist college is actually fun for some reason, it's pathetic what's fun here. O ya! the best thing ever happened last night! It was storming and we had the door open cause it was cool and fun to watch and guess what came in? A Frog! Lol i just saw it jump up and i was scared cause i thought it was a rat but then when i saw it was a frog i was super happy, it was a big one too. Itcame in and like went in to where we have our pass along cards and stuff and Elder Tripp was like freaking out like telling me to get it out lol i wasjust so happy he was pretty awesome looking. I scooped him into my bikehelment with an ensign lol and let him back outside. I guess they reallycome out when it rains here. It was awesome and way funny anyways I'm gonna go play some online poker or something (jk mom) love elder blake theo porter